Technical Field
The present invention relates to detection of an object by using a radar and a camera.
Related Art
A vehicle collision avoidance system is required to accurately detect an object, such as a vehicle other than, a controlled vehicle (i.e., a vehicle in which the system is mounted) or a pedestrian. A vehicle collision avoidance system, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open. Publication No. 2006-292475, is configured to detect an object by using a radar and a camera. More specifically, the disclosed vehicle collision avoidance system uses a millimeter-wave radar and a stereoscopic camera separately, and determines that an object detected by the millimeter-wave radar and an object detected by the stereoscopic camera are the same when a positional relationship therebetween meets a predetermined criterion.
It may be envisaged that, in a vehicle collision avoidance system alternative to the disclosed vehicle collision avoidance system, a monocular camera is used instead of the stereoscopic camera. However, the monocular camera and the stereoscopic camera are quite different from each other in principle of detecting a position, particularly, a forward distance, of an object relative to the controlled vehicle, and accuracy of detecting the forward distance of the object by the monocular camera is much lower than accuracy of detecting the forward distance of the object by the stereoscopic camera. Therefore, replacement of the stereoscopic camera with the monocular camera cannot lead to proper detection of the object.
In consideration of the foregoing, it would therefore be desirable to have an object detection apparatus capable of detecting an object more properly by using a radar and a monocular camera.